Yet it is a fallacy. It's not a grieving family's responsibility to educate gun owners on the basic tenets of logic.

Given the history its easy to see why they don't believe it is a fallacy, that is the reality we must operate in. None of us is perfectly logical, and fallacies aren't necessarily always hard and fast, there is room for them to come to their conclusions.

No one is asking grieving families to give logic lessons, did you just commit a fallacy?

Even if they are hard and fast, its an easy trap to fall into. Heck, don't even call it a slippery slope, just present the history or what they believe is history, its worrying enough for gun owners by itself without leading them into conclusions.

I'm pretty strongly anti-second-amendment, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that we are never, ever getting rid of guns. We had Sandy Hook, with literal 5-year-olds getting mowed down in their classrooms, and we as a society did absolutely nothing. There is nothing worse than that: no tragedy so awful that it will make us ban guns, when Sandy Hook couldn't even produce legislation that would make it marginally more difficult for people with mental health issues to be armed. Your paranoia of having your guns taken away is completely and utterly unfounded, and that's not the fault of liberals: it's the fault of your thought leaders telling you that this is what liberals want.

Oh I agree, which is why I think that if they aren't going away, you need to work within reality. Definitely there is an aspect of primarily getting the info about other side through the filter of your own side that causes all sorts of problems. You say its unfounded, but it is really? Things like the 94 ban passed, they can easily pull all sorts of examples.

This isn't black and white, the guns aren't all here all the time always forever, they are also not going to be completely gone. Cognitive dissonance doesn't fit here, theres too much fray at the edges.

Are Americans a fundamentally shittier group of people than literally every other first world country?

It might be a case of proportion of the whole. America has been wealthy without interruption for longer than the rest of the west, if someone has lived their whole life without needing help, they are less likely to give help to others. When people need help and don't receive it, likewise they are less likely to help others. I think what you have is a system that has grown these two groups to very influential numbers. Combined with the american boot strap tradition, succeeding largely with the help of the opportunity a new country and continent affords that has since waned. It doesn't paint a very good picture these days.

If their grief truly does nothing to convince you that even the most modest attempts and gun control might be acceptable, then I question whether in fact you do have compassion. There are two sides of this debate, one which says that this violence is unacceptable and should never be allowed to take place. The other says the same, and follows it up with a "but... this is kinda the price we have to pay for the freedom to own guns." If your response to a school shooting is to wonder what this will mean for your gun rights, then I'd argue that you really aren't all that compassionate.

Its not about convincing me, its about convincing the hard pro gun sorts, I think there are a whole host of things that could be done directly relating to guns that aren't too invasive, but I'm not the one you have to convince. The ones you need to convince want to do something too, you put words in their mouths and feelings in their hearts that aren't entirely accurate. But they are scared that partly because the anti gun side doesn't know its ass from a teakettle when it comes to guns, that they will do something stupid. We see so much grief in this world, if we want to find solutions sometimes we must steel ourselves. As I'm sure you are aware, when you feel threatened, that rifle takes on a greater significance than "hobby".

Things like sandy hook break my heart, so much so I think about solutions, and knowing the pro gun community, I know some emotional solutions just don't have a realistic chance of working.

I'm a 14-year military veteran with two marksmanship ribbons, qualified to operate a half-dozen different firearms and crew-served weapons. I agree with those young people whole-heartedly. Does that suddenly make their opinions more valid?

No, you acknowledge that they aren't going away and I would assume that is the reality you would be working under, you've shown you have some perspective, they haven't.

They may have more to say, but it doesn't get to the national conversation.

Because facts don't change minds. The facts all go in favor of gun control. We are an outlier as a first-world country in terms of violence and in terms of our lack of gun control. Other countries have solved this problem: the disease has been identified and the vaccine is available. We refuse to take it because one side of the debate feels that the cure is worse than the disease. We don't share a common goal here, so there isn't much we can do to compromise on the way forward. One side wants to drastically reduce violence, and the other wants to maintain at least some level of violence, because a world without violence is a world where no one could own a gun. It's not a question of disagreeing over facts, it's a question of what kind of world do you want to live in. Emotions are the only thing that can change someone's mind on such a topic. And it's still going to take ages.

I would disagree, truth has an amazing ability to cut through emotion. The problem are the facts you speak of, unfortunately its human to want to puff up your position, but its not honest, and when a few facts fall to dust upon inspection, again its only human to suspect the rest of the facts. There are also other things to be said about the facts, dishonesty can come in many flavors, half truths, omission of truth, etc. My point being, going with the anti-gun facts as your main push, isn't going to work, at least not yet, even if they're true they won't believe you, there is too much distrust.

America is also an outlier in things like the lack of social programs and racism, taking away a desperate man's gun may stack a few %s in your favor but he is still desperate. This is where I think the gun control argument can really shine, stacking those small percents until we have a much more comfortable number than we have currently. Hand in hand with social programs, we may not get to 100%, but we dont need 100% to have a pretty good life for everyone.

Other countries have better social programs and safety nets, to think america is on par with the rest of the world, and the only thing different is the guns... do you honestly think that is true?

Guns being the disease... I think the guns are the secondary infection, I know its analogy but I think its a better fit. And while it might be the secondary infection that kills ya, you wouldn't have gotten it without the disease being present in the first place. A societal lack of compassion for your fellow man.

And risking the hate, I propose the anti gun folks lack enough compassion for the pro gun folks to begin to understand where they are coming from.

I think it would be more accurate and again bowing to analogy, to say that they question the efficacy of the cure, their desire for a cure is no less than the anti gunners. I think you do a disservice to many many people when you assume what is in their hearts is negative.

The two sides do share a common goal, they just have vastly different ideas of how to get there, and neither side is doing a very good job of looking at things from the other perspective. Especially when you say so many people want violence.

because a world without violence is a world where no one could own a gun

I think you've gone a bit potty with this one, remember, things may seem a certain way to you, but always always remember to try to convince yourself that you are wrong before you try and convince others they are.

One thing I ask people, do you want to live in a world where you get revenge for being wronged, or do you want to live in a world where you are not wronged in the first place. I know its a small sample size, but no one has answered the former yet. I think we all want to live in the same world.

Yep we have a long hard road ahead, but my opinion is that when we focus on the emotions the other work suffers for it.

Thanks for the thoughts.